A female high school wrestling champion was shot dead while sitting in her parked car outside her Chicago home on Saturday evening
Melissa 'Azul' de la Garza, 18, was coming back from a day of shopping for Halloween costumes and had just finished a Facetime call with her sister when an unidentified man approached her car and shot her multiple times in the torso before fleeing, according to the Chicago Police Department.
She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, where she was pronounced dead, police confirmed.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department told DailyMail.com that the motive for the shooting is unclear and investigators are still searching for the suspect.
The shooting comes amid a huge surge in violent crimes and shootings in Chicago. The 18-year old athlete was one of nine people shot dead in the city over the weekend.
Melissa 'Azul' de la Garza, 18, was shot dead while sitting in her parked car outside her home in Chicago's Southwest Side on Saturday evening
She had just been talking with her sister on FaceTime when an unidentified gunman approached her car and open fire, striking her torso multiple times
'She just seemed so happy in that FaceTime call,' de la Garza's older sister Isabel said at a press conference after the shooting. 'I can't fathom this, I can't understand it. And it's so heart-breaking for me and my whole family.'
De la Garza also went by the name Azul and was referred to by both she/her and they/them pronouns.
De la Garza's father Jose rushed outside after hearing the gunshots and police showed up to the scene minutes later. 'He saw my sister sitting in the car. He was screaming her name, and she wasn't responding,' Isabel told local news station WLS. 'My dad opened the door and just held her.'
Jose described his daughter as a 'warrior princess.' She was the only girl on the wrestling team at Solorio Academy High School and the second in the school's history, according to a newsletter from the school. She was also an artist and planned to take a year off to work and save money before attending the School of the Art Institute in Chicago on a scholarship.
'It's hard to put in words the loss we are feeling,' Jose said, through tears, at Sunday's press conference. 'For someone to take away my 18-year-old warrior princess. She had a scholarship, and she was a wrestler at Solorio, took second place in state, just doing everything the best way we've taught her. For someone to come and take that away for no reason—it doesn't make any sense.'
